Engineering Commons^™

Method For Creating Subject-Specific Models Of The Wrist In Both Degrees Of Freedom Using Measured Muscle Excitations And Joint Torques, Blake Robert Harper

Theses and Dissertations

Two-thirds of repetitive strain injuries affect the wrist joint. Although force is believed to be one of the major factors, the forces involved in wrist movements have not been thoroughly characterized in vivo. Computer simulations with a musculoskeletal model of the wrist have been used to estimate wrist muscle forces, but only at maximum voluntary contraction and only involving a single degree of freedom (DOF). In this study we present a method for creating a subject-specific model that can be used to estimate muscle forces and joint torques in both degrees of freedom of the wrist over a range of …

Sensitivity Of Tremor Propagation To Model Parameters, Charles Paul Curtis Jr.

Theses and Dissertations

Although Essential Tremor (ET) is the most common type of tremor, many patients are left without satisfactory treatment options. One potential alternative treatment to medication or surgery is a wearable tremor-suppressing device. However, optimizing the effectiveness of such a device requires knowledge of which muscles/joints are most responsible for tremor. To answer this question, current efforts simulate tremor propagation using a model of the neuromusculoskeletal dynamics of the upper limb. To guide efforts to identify realistic model parameters and use the model to determine the mechanical origin of tremor, we performed preliminary parameter estimation work and a thorough sensitivity analysis …

A Study In Soft Robotics: Metrics, Models, Control, And Estimation, Levi Thomas Rupert

Theses and Dissertations

Traditional robots, while capable of being efficient and effective for the task they were designed, are dangerous when operating in unmodeled environments or around humans. The field of soft robotics attempts to increase the safety of robots thus enabling them to operate in environments where traditional robots should not operate. Because of this, soft robots were developed with different goals in mind than traditional robots and as such the traditional metrics used to evaluate standard robots are not effective for evaluating soft robots. New metrics need to be developed for soft robots so that effective comparison and evaluations can be …

Physical-Based Training Data Collection Approach For Data-Driven Lithium-Ion Battery State-Of-Charge Prediction, Jie Li, Will Ziehm, Jonathan W. Kimball, Robert Landers, Jonghyun Park

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Data-Driven approaches for State of Charge (SOC) prediction have been developed considerably in recent years. However, determining the appropriate training dataset is still a challenge for model development and validation due to the considerably varieties of lithium-ion batteries in terms of material, types of battery cells, and operation conditions. This work focuses on optimization of the training data set by using simple measurable data sets, which is important for the accuracy of predictions, reduction of training time, and application to online estimation. It is found that a randomly generated data set can be effectively used for the training data set, …

Gaze Estimation And Tracking For Assisted Living Environments, Paris Her

Master's Theses (2009 -)

Assisted living environments must be able to efficiently and unobtrusively gather information on a person's well-being. Human gaze direction provides some of the strongest indicators of how a person behaves and interacts with their environment. To that end, this thesis proposes a gaze tracking method that uses a neural network regressor to estimate gaze direction from facial keypoints and integrates them over time using various temporal methods, specifically through moving averages and a Kalman filter. Our gaze regression model uses confidence gated units to handle cases of keypoint occlusion and is able to estimate its own prediction uncertainty. This approach …

Method And System For Region Proposal Based Object Recognition For Estimating Planogram Compliance, Avishek Kumar Shaw, Rajashree Ramakrishnan, Shilpa Yadukumar Rao, Pranoy Hari, Dipti Prasad Mukherjee, Bikash Santra

Patents

This disclosure relates generally to a system and method to identify various products on a plurality of images of various shelves of a retail store to facilitate compliance with respect to planograms. Planogram is a visual plan, which designates the placement of products on shelves and merchandising display fixtures of a retail store. Planograms are used to create consistency between store locations, to provide proper shelf space allocation, to improve visual merchandising appeal, and to create product-pairing suggestions. There are a few assumptions considering one instance per product class is available beforehand and the physical dimension of each product template …

Sensitivity And Estimation Of Flying-Wing Aerodynamic, Propulsion, And Inertial Parameters Using Simulation, Jaden Thurgood, Douglas F. Hunsaker

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Student Publications and Presentations

This paper explores the difficulties of aircraft system identification, specifically parameter estimation, for a rudderless aircraft. A white box method is used in conjunction with a nonlinear six degree-of-freedom aerodynamic model for the equations of motion in order to estimate 33 parameters that govern the aerodynamic, inertial, and propulsion forces within the mathematical model. The analysis is conducted in the time-domain of system identification. Additionally, all the parameters are estimated using a single flight rather than a series of shorter flights dedicated to estimating specific sets of parameters as is typically done. A final flight plan is developed with a …

Aircraft Exhaust Gas Temperature Value Mining With Rough Set Method, Mustagime Tülin Yıldırım Asst. Prof., Mehtap Taşcı

International Journal of Aviation, Aeronautics, and Aerospace

Aircrafts are one of the most important means of transportation today. For aircrafts to be able to serve safely, their maintenance must be done in a timely and complete manner. In addition to regular maintenance, it may appear suddenly; there is also irregular maintenance performed in cases such as lightning strikes, bird strikes, and hard landings. Engine failures and maintenance has great importance in aircraft maintenance. Using the data recorded during the flight by flight data recorder, the engine health condition is monitored and the necessary maintenance procedures are carried out. In this study, the exhaust gas temperature was estimated …

Robustness And Accuracy Bounds Of Model-Based Structural Health Monitoring, Nestor Ramon Polanco

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

The strength and stiffness of structures degrade with time due to a combination of external forces and environmental conditions. A vehicular bridge, an offshore platform, a ship hull, or a wind turbine are examples of structures that for decades must endure cumulative degradation of their mechanical properties due to cyclic loading. Fatigue-induced damage typically starts at the exterior surface of the component unless microscopic or macroscopic imperfections are present in the material's structure. Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) provides a scientific non-destructive framework to estimate the structure's current state and remaining service life. In many model-based structural health monitoring applications, the …

Transform Based Approaches For The Detection Of Astrophysical Signals, Marwan Mahfud Alkhweldi

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

Development of new algorithms for the detection of isolated astrophysical pulses is of interest to radio astronomers. Both Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs) and several Rotating Radio Transients (RRATs) were detected through the application of a single pulse search algorithm. The conventional approach to detect astronomical pulses requires an exhaustive search for the correct dispersion measure. Its accelerated versions involve signal processing in Fourier transform space.

In this dissertation, we present several new transform-based approaches for the detection and analysis of astrophysical signals with the latest being the most effective and advanced of all. It is implemented in several steps. First, …